Thai pro-government protestors attempt to stop court verdict

Dec 2, 2008, 2:30 GMT

Bangkok - Hundreds of pro-government demonstrators wearing red shirts and carrying clubs rallied against the convening of the Thai Constituion Court Tuesday to prevent the reading of a verdict expected to lead to political changes and perhaps more turmoil.

The nine judges on the case shifted the trial to the Administrative Court building in northern Bangkok to avoid a gathering of the pro-government Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship (DAAD), who had planned to gather outside the Constitution Court in an effort to block the verdict.

Even so, the Administrative Court was quickly surrounded by more than 1,000 DAAD members. The court was under the protection of Thai Army troops armed with M16 rifles.

The Constitution Court has sped up the final hearing of three election fraud cases involving the People Power, Chart Thai and Matchimathipataya parties, which comprise the current coalition government.

Based on past court precedents, it is expected that all three parties will be found guilty of violating election laws in the polls of December 23, 2007, on the grounds that top party executives have already been found guilty by the court of vote-buying.

Under the Thai constitution, parties must be dissolved and their key executives banned from politics if even one of their members is found guilty of election fraud.

If the People Power Party, the lead party in the coalition, is dissolved by the court, it would mean that current Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat must resign along with most of the cabinet.

In the ensuring power vacuum, several scenarios are possible.

The remaining members of the People Power party, which won about 230 out of 480 contested seats in the 2007 general election, are expected to shift to the Puea Thai party, which would hold enough seats to form a new coalition government with remnant members of the Chart Thai and Matchimathipataya parties.

Under the constitution, the Constitution Court in an emergency can also set up a Supreme Council to rule the country on an interim basis prior to a new election.

While this option is favoured by many Thais as a means of placating the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), an anti- government group that has held Bangkok's two airports hostage to its demands that the government step down for the last two months, it is not expected to be accepted by pro-government forces.

The Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship (DAAD), a reverse image pro-government civic grouping opposed to the PAD, had plans to block the Constitution Court verdict Tuesday and would certainly object to a 'judicial coup' that installed an unelected government.

Pro-government politicians suspect the Constitution Court is working hand-in-hand with the PAD, a loose coalition of groups united only in their desire to prevent a political comeback by fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinwatara, a populist politician who dominated Thai politics during his two-term, 2001-06 premiership and now lives in self-exile.

Although the PAD has lost a good deal of its former popularity by seizing Bangkok's two airports last week, causing the Thai economy incalculable damage, the movement remains untouchable for security authorities who have refrained from cracking down.

The PAD is known to have the support of members of Thailand's political elite, including leaders of the Army, which toppled Thaksin with a coup in September 2006.

'Backers of the PAD have been playing a high-stakes game,' said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist from Chulalongkorn University.

There are worries that the DAAD will launch the kind of street protests and civil disobedience tactics practiced by the PAD over the last six months that have brought the country to its knees.

They could also unleash their fury on the PAD.

'Then, who can stop the DAAD? Only Thaksin,' said Thitinan.